“All right,” said Jim. “Gee! Watson, you’d make a fine coach. You’re a regular tyrant. I’m glad I’m not under you all the time. I’ll ask for an easier keeper the next time.”
Laughing, they wandered away from the station and down the tracks to the freight depot, where the only activity in the neighborhood seemed to be.
But, although they did not know it, they were not the only Yale men around. For every move they had made had been observed by Foote, who, scarcely able to believe in his luck, had seen Jim appear, practically alone, for he took little account of Watson. Now he saw how to work his plan with what little chance of failure and discovery there had been before eliminated. When they had got out of sight, he followed them cautiously, making it impossible for them to know that they were being tracked, and he was not far behind them when they got into the maze of the tracks of the freight yard, where the numerous cars enabled him to stalk them and get close to them without exciting their suspicion in any way.
On one of the tracks a long train of empty freight cars was being made up. The cars had brought freight to New Haven from points all over the United States, and they were now being prepared to start on their long journey back to their starting point. Jim and Watson wandered along this long train. An engine was backing up to one end of it, and, at the back, the brakemen were taking their places in the caboose. The run to New York would mean little work for them. They had tobacco, pipes, and cigarettes, and one of them, standing on the track, held up a pack of cards.
“Big game to-day,” he shouted. “Got a pinochle deck here. Who’s in?”
“Pretty soft for them,” said Watson.
“Sometimes,” answered Jim, with a smile. “But if you’d ever braked on a freight out West in the winter, in the middle of a blizzard, when they’re crossing the divide, you wouldn’t think it was an easy job. Grades that you’d have a fit just to look at, and brakes to set when the temperature’s away below zero. They have it hard about as often as they have it easy, I guess.”
“Hello!” exclaimed Watson. “What’s that?”
From somewhere near by there came the cry of a child—a baby. It seemed to be in distress of some sort. The cry was very faint, but clear and unmistakable. They both stopped to listen.
“Sounds like a hungry kid,” said Jim. “My young sister used to yell just that way when she was a baby. I wasn’t much older, but I can remember that much.”